Blood Feud: Joel Tudor vs. Noa Deane in creative battle royale!

What would surfing be without Joel Tudor? I’ll tell you what. A bland smögåsbord featuring tasteless post-heat interviews and “surfing makes you stoked” platitudes. Joel brings the spice and today he is pouring it all over one of my very favorite surfers Noa Deane.

I’ve never met Noa, personally, but have always appreciated his attitude. He seems not to care what you think, what I think, what anyone thinks. He drinks beer, gets pudgy, rips, slims down and starts again. A true rock n roll lifestyle and those are ever diminishing in our surfing. Do you remember when Rabbit Bartholomew acted exactly like Mick Jagger? I don’t either.

In any case, Joel Tudor is angry with Noa Deane this morning for artistic appropriation and, quite possibly cultural appropriation too. Let’s examine ourselves. I’ll be the impartial judge, presenting the evidence coldly and without emotion. You be the jury, delivering the verdict in the comments below.

Ok?

So Joel posted this on Instagram today:

Sad to see the lack of creativity in our industry- first logo is a native moon …second is @delhiero from 1990 – the third is our label @doublesltd stared earlier this year …number 4 is blatant bite of our logo done by @ilovetables today – always knew people were watching my shit …just didn’t know it was this bad – sad times 🙁

By “native moon” I’m assuming Joel means a Native American rendering, quite possibly of a moon, and a quick Google search corroborates. The second that he references (delhiero) is actually Del the Funky Homosapien. Do you remember him from the early to middle 1990s? Absolutely fantastic. If I’m not mistaken he has done some work with the Gorillaz recently though let’s not get distracted here.

The third (doublesltd) appears to be a new and very popular brand in which Joel must be involved. Everything in the store is sold out. Fail to buy here!

And the last is of course Noa Deane’s though I don’t know from where as I can’t find it.

Now, instructions for the jury. There is a veritable Rubik’s Cube of possible charges. The first is cultural appropriation for all of them, a very very very serious crime in today’s climate, where Del the Funky Homosapien, Joel Tudor and Noa Deane get locked up in a Native American prison for life without the possibility of parole. Another is artistic theft of Del the Funky Homosapien by Joel Tudor. Yet another is artistic theft of Joel Tudor by Noa Deane. And a final is some sort of alien time travel artistic theft of Noa Deane by the Native Americans.

The jury here, on BeachGrit, decides both guilt and the penalty. Most upvotes wins.

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From the we-didn’t-get-the-exclusive department: Occy’s wavepool opens for testing!

Surf Lakes is a a full-sized demonstration model located midway between the Queensland towns of Yeppoon and Rockhampton and uses a giant plunger to create waves, unlike the sled-foil combo of the Slater pool and Wavegarden and the air pressure game of American Wave Machines.

“We had our first waves yesterday but we’re not at 100 percent capacity yet. We at around forty percent,” says media director and former Tracks magazine editor Wayne Dart, who says the first waves were two, maybe three foot. “We’re analysing all the numbers, making sure we can get it to full size and not break it, essentially. But, this afternoon, there’ll be waves that are overhead. From an engineering perspective, all the numbers are matching. We’re confident it will handle full-tilt.”

I say to Dart that it sounds a little Apollo mission-esqe, pushing the technology into the unknown, risking catastrophic breakdowns, and so forth.

“Walk around the actual structure and it actually feels like a rocket launcher,” he says.

Dart says the technology, the jumbo plunger, has exceeded expectations.

It’s surreal. You look at the footage and it looks like an artist’s impression. You’ve got trees and mountains in the background and this crystal clear green wave breaking down the line.”

“Mate, it was unbelievable. The thing is mind-blowing. Everything about it. The technology and just the sheer beauty of the backdrop and surrounds. It’s surreal. You look at the footage and it looks like an artist’s impression. You’ve got trees and mountains in the background and this crystal clear green wave breaking down the line.”

Is it a noisy son of a bitch?

“The movement of the plunger is dead silent but there’s engine noise from the generators. In a full commercial model you can configure it so there’s no noise at all. And if you use renewable energy, it’d be silent.”

Has it got a filter or do you not fear the brain-gobbling amoeba?

“We’re chlorinating the water, with pool guys testing it every day so it meets regulations.”

There are four waves in the pool: the A-Frame, Occy’s Peak, a beachbreak-style wave and “further around, a wave that stands up on this ledge and rifles down the line. We’ll get to that one today.”

Footage gets loosed on Monday.

Hoo-ee etc.

(Watch a short film from earlier this year as the pool neared completion.)

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Breaking: Sea level rise is wiping Hawaii off the face of the earth!

In a widely expected but also completely unexpected turn of events, sea level rise and increased hurricane strength has disappeared a small island belonging to the Hawaiian chain. And let us turn to Honolulu’s Civil Beat(one of the best resources around) for more:

Hurricane Walaka, one of the most powerful Pacific storms ever recorded, has erased an ecologically important remote northwestern island from the Hawaiian archipelago.

Using satellite imagery, federal scientists confirmed Monday that East Island, a critical habitat for endangered Hawaiian monk seals and green sea turtles, was almost entirely washed away earlier this month.

“I had a holy shit moment, thinking ‘Oh my God, it’s gone,’” said Chip Fletcher, a University of Hawaii climate scientist. “It’s one more chink in the wall of the network of ecosystem diversity on this planet that is being dismantled.”

I am no scientist nor am I an alarmist nor am I an ecologist but I do have a fever (still) so feel permitted to weigh in here.

Do you think that World Surf League CEO had this information available, that sea-level rise was going to knock out Hawaii, when she flew to Honolulu with bullish demands? Insisting that the WSL season should begin on the North Shore and not end there? Do you think she was worried about the North Shore being entirely vanished by the time the WSL rolled in to town in December?

Many things to ponder.

After!

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Watch: Kelly Slater on The Joe Rogan Experience!

This should have been up the second it dropped but I came down with a raging fever last night, a historic fever that’s still burning through my body. It is difficult to see the computer screen right now because sweat is pouring into my eyes but there are no excuses. Kelly Slater has a broken foot and made it onto The Joe Rogan Experience. I have a fever and should have posted the video of him on The Joe Rogan Experience sooner and I am sorry.

Is it malaria? Maybe. Ain’t it strange how travel plants exotic diseases deep into the travelers bones where viruses and bacterias and etc. lie semi-dormant before pouncing? Between the sexually transmitted variety and the tropical travel variety I’d reckon surfers have more exotic diseases than any other first-ish world population group. Definitely more than golfers. I don’t even know, in fact, if any exotic diseases besides the common cold and tuberculosis are hearty enough to live in Scotland. J.P. Currie? Can you weigh in here?

Damn it. Sweat.

Here, anyhow, is Kelly and Joe, Joe and Kelly and, real quick, do you think Kelly regretted wearing a white t-shirt to the taping? Joe and Kelly could/should/maybe are twinsies.

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Watch this little short and you'll be dabbing a napkin at your tear-glistened eyes! Here, Gabriel, in 2014, as world champ.

Charlie Medina: “Gabriel’s not here to make friends. He’s here to win!”

A tearjerker feature on the wondrous life of Gabriel Medina from WSL Studio…

Let’s admit it. It’s taken a while, years, but who isn’t ready to be impaled on Gabriel Medina’s jumbo stake?

In this very good eight-minute short from WSL Studio we go beyond his fumbling post-heat interviews (you try and express the platitudes of pro sports in a second language) and into Gabriel’s world. Which comprises, mostly, surfing, family, airports.

Will Gabriel, the boy with the tawny eyes and coarse black hair, win the world title at Pipe? The odds are short enough. A one-dollar bet will get you $1.33. Four bucks for Julian. Ten on Filipe.

In this short, Barton Lynch tells us that Gabriel is his favourite surfer in the world.

Mick Fanning says he’s one of the “most naturally talent and gifted kids I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t have any flaws.”

“He’s got the way of carrying himself that he feels unbeatable,” says Peter Mel.